5 Best High Tech Stocks For 2014

On this day in economic and business history...

The first official recognition of Mother's Day occurred nearly a century ago, when on May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May would thereafter be a time to celebrate all things motherly. Dreamed up years earlier, the holiday gained legitimacy after Anna Jarvis mounted a spirited campaign to gain recognition, first as an American holiday and ultimately a global event. Jarvis also helped originate the tradition of giving and wearing carnation flowers on Mother's Day, in honor of the mother she'd lost and hoped to commemorate.

Mother's Day has since grown into one of the most heavily commercialized holidays on the calendar, and this process was so rapid and pronounced that it turned Jarvis herself against her own holiday. In our time, the National Retail Federation estimates that nearly $19 billion will be spent each Mother's Day. Here's where most of that money goes:

5 Best High Tech Stocks For 2014: Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc.(PRAA)

Portfolio Recovery Associates, Inc., a financial and business service company, engages in the purchase, collection, and management of portfolios of defaulted consumer receivables. It detects, collects, and processes unpaid and normal-course accounts receivables owed primarily to credit grantors, governments, and retailers. The company also acquires receivables of Visa, MasterCard, and other credit cards; private label credit cards; installment loans; lines of credit; bankrupt accounts; deficiency balances of various types; legal judgments, and trade payables from various debt owners, including banks, credit unions, consumer finance companies, telecommunication providers, retailers, utilities, insurance companies, medical groups, hospitals, auto finance companies, and other debt buyers. In addition, it provides fee-based services, including vehicle location, skip tracing, and collateral recovery services for auto lenders, governments, and law enforcement; revenue administra tion, audit, and debt discovery/recovery services for local government entities; and class action claims recovery services and related payment processing services. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia.

5 Best High Tech Stocks For 2014: St. Joe Co (JOE)

The St. Joe Company, incorporated on May 26, 1936, owns land, timber and resort assets located primarily in Northwest Florida, Jacksonville, Florida and Tallahassee, Florida. The Company operates in five segments: residential real estate, commercial real estate, resorts, leisure and leasing operations, forestry, and rural land. Its residential real estate segment plans and develops mixed-use resort, primary and seasonal residential communities of various sizes, primarily on the Company's existing land. In the Company's commercial real estate segment the Company plans, develops, manages and sells real estate for commercial purposes. Its leisure and leasing operations includes the Company's resorts and clubs financial information, which was presented in the residential real estate segment. The Company owns and operates forestry operations in the Southeastern United States. It traditionally sells parcels of varying sizes ranging from less than one acre to thousands of acres.

Residential Real Estate

The Company owns large tracts of land in Northwest Florida, including Gulf of Mexico beach frontage, and other waterfront properties and land in and around Jacksonville and Tallahassee. Within the Company's residential real estate business, the Company has two types of communities and is planning to add a third type. The first, the Company's residential resort communities, are positioned to attract primarily second home buyers. The Company's l projects in this category include the WaterColor and WaterSound Beach communities, which were built in a region of Florida. The Company's second category of residential communities is the Company's primary home communities for buyers who will use the community as their primary residence. The Breakfast Point, RiverTown and SouthWood communities are the Company's largest projects in this category. The Company's third category of residential communities is active adult communities.

Commercial Real Estate

The Company focuse! s on commercial development and sales in Northwest Florida because of its large land holdings surrounding the new Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (the Airport), along roadways and near or within business districts in the region. The Company provides development opportunities for national and regional retailers and its strategic partners in Northwest Florida. The Company offers land for commercial and light industrial uses within large and small-scale commerce parks, as well as a range of multi-family rental projects. The Company also develops commercial parcels within or near existing residential development projects.

Resorts, Leisure and Leasing Operations

The Company's leasing operations were presented in both its residential real estate and commercial real estate segments. The Company's resorts, leisure and leasing operations segment includes recurring revenue streams from the Company's resort and leisure businesses and its leasing operations. The Company's WaterColor Inn and Resort is a boutique hotel, which provides guests with a beach club, spa, tennis center, restaurant and complementary retail and commercial space. The day-to-day operations of the WaterColor Inn and Resort is managed by Noble House Hotels & Resorts. In addition the Company's vacation rental business rents private homes in the WaterColor community and surrounding communities, primarily in those that the Company has built, to individuals who are vacationing in the area. The Company does not own the homes, but for a fee, the Company advertises , take reservations, check-in and check-out , and clean and maintains the home for the homeowner. The Company owns four golf courses in Northwest Florida. Three of them are in the Panama City Beach area and the fourth is located in Tallahassee. The golf courses are situated in or near the Company's residential communities. The Company also own two marinas. The Company's golf courses and marinas are managed for the Company by a third party management c! ompanies.!

The Company's leasing operations business includes the Company's retail and commercial leasing. The Company has several small retail shopping centers located in or near to some of its residential projects, such as the WaterColor, SouthWood and WindMark Beach communities that are managed by its leasing team. The Company's commercial leasing business includes industrial parks and several commerce parks. One of the industrial parks is the Company's VentureCrossings Enterprise Centre, a 1,000 acre commercial and industrial development adjacent to the Airport.

Forestry

The Company has 545,000 acres designated for forestry operations, including land in West Bay. Southern Pine, the Company's main product, is a product that fits well into cost-conscience supply chains. The Company's forestry operations can produce about 1.3 million tons of trees for lumber and pulp on an annual, sustainable basis. The Company rigorously examines the characteristics of individual trees in a forest and the interactions of those trees with each other and with the forest ecosystem as a whole in order to maximize the timber output. The Company produces both sawtimber (lumber used in construction) and pulp (timber used to make pulp for products like linerboard).

Rural Land

The majority of rural land sold is undeveloped timberland and is managed as timberland until sold, although some parcels include the benefits of limited development activity, including improved roads, ponds and fencing. The pricing of these parcels varies significantly based on size, location, terrain, timber quality and other local factors.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Roberto Pedone]

  One potential earnings short-squeeze candidate is St. Joe (JOE), a land, timber and resort assets owner in Northwest Florida, which is set to release numbers on Wednesday after the market close. Wall Street analysts, on average, expect St. Joe to report revenue of $25.10 million on a loss of 1 cent per share.

  The current short interest as a percentage of the float for St. Joe is pretty high at 15.9%. That means that out of the 92.17 million shares in the tradable float, 14.68 million shares are sold short by the bears. If the bulls get the earnings news they're looking for, then shares of JOE could easily rip higher post-earnings.

  From a technical perspective, JOE is currently trending below both its 50-day and 200-day moving averages, which is bearish. This stock has been downtrending badly for the last three months, with shares falling from its high of $24.44 to its recent low of $18.83 a share. During that downtrend, shares of JOE have been consistently making lower highs and lower lows, which is bearish technical price action. That said, shares of JOE have recently started to bounce off that $18.83 low and it's now quickly moving within range of triggering a near-term breakout trade.

  If you're bullish on JOE, then I would wait until after its report and look for long-biased trades if this stock manages to break out above both its 50-day at $20.49 a share and its 200-day at $20.83 a share with high volume. Look for volume on that move that hits near or above its three-month average action of 417,000 shares. If we get that breakout, then JOE will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $22 to $23.50 a share. Any high-volume move above $23.50 will then put $24.50 to $26 into range for shares of JOE.

  I would avoid JOE or look for short-biased trades if after earnings it fails to trigger that breakout, and then drops back below some key near-term support levels at $18.83 to $18.79 a share with high volume. If we get that move, then JOE will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major support levels at $16.50 to $15.50 a share.

Top 5 Clean Energy Companies To Buy For 2014: Huntsman Corporation(HUN)

Huntsman Corporation engages in the manufacture and sale of differentiated organic and inorganic chemical products worldwide. The company offers polyurethane chemicals, including methyl diphenyl diisocyanate, propylene oxide, polyols, propylene glycol, thermoplastic polyurethane, aniline, and methyl tertiary-butyl ether products, which are used to produce rigid and flexible foams, as well as coatings, adhesives, sealants, and elastomers; and performance products, such as amines, carbonates, surfactants, linear alkyl benzene, maleic anhydride, performance chemicals, ethylene glycol, olefins, and technology licenses. It also provides advanced materials comprising epoxy resin compounds and formulations; cross-linking, matting agents, and curing agents; and epoxy, acrylic and polyurethane-based adhesives, and tooling resin formulations. In addition, Huntsman Corporation offers textile chemicals, dyes, and titanium dioxide. The company?s products are used in various applicatio ns, including adhesives, aerospace, automotive, construction products, durable and non-durable consumer products, electronics, medical, packaging, paints and coatings, power generation, refining, synthetic fiber, textile chemicals, and dye industries. Huntsman Corporation was founded in 1970 and is based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Michael]

  Huntsman Corporation (HUN) engages in the manufacture and sale of differentiated organic and inorganic chemical products on a global scale. It has also been given a buy-rating by UBS Investment Research. UBS estimates that for every 10% change in the margin of Propylene Oxide, earnings per share would change b y 5 cents for Huntsman Corporation. Shares of the company are currently trading at $11.2 per share and have traded between $8.13 and $21.52 over the last 52 weeks. Calanese Corporation (CE), a manufacturer and marketer of chemical products, is a competitor of Huntsman Corporation. Huntsman reported a dividend yield of 3.6%, while Calanese reported a dividend yield of 0.5%. Return-on-equity was reported at 10.5% for Huntsman and 51.6% for Calanese. Calanese also generated higher profit and operating margins than Huntsman. There were equal number of hedge funds in each stock, however hedge funds' bet more dollars on Calanese. One of our favorite hedge funds, Third Point, initiated a brand new position in CE during the third quarter. That's why we pick CE over HUN.

5 Best High Tech Stocks For 2014: Tabcorp Holdings Ltd(TAH.AX)

Tabcorp Holdings Limited engages in the provision of leisure and entertainment services in Australia. It operates in four segments: Wagering, Media & International, Victorian Gaming, and Keno. The Wagering segment conducts wagering activities through a network of agencies, hotels, and clubs in Victoria and New South Wales; provides on course totalizators at thoroughbred, harness, and greyhound metropolitan and country race meetings; and offers totalizator and fixed odds betting on sporting events. This segment also operates LUXBET.COM, which offers racing, sport, and novelty product bookmaking service by telephone and online based in the Northern Territory. The Media & International segment involves in television and radio operations focusing on the racing industry and other sporting activities, including Sky racing, Sky Sports radio, and various other Australian and international broadcasting services. The Victorian Gaming segment owns and operates electronic gaming machi nes in licensed hotels and clubs under the Tabaret brand. The Keno segment operates Keno games in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. The company is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia.

5 Best High Tech Stocks For 2014: Chemical Financial Corporation(CHFC)

Chemical Financial Corporation operates as the financial holding company for Chemical Bank that offers banking and fiduciary products and services in Michigan. Its products and services include business and personal checking accounts, savings and individual retirement accounts, time deposit instruments, electronically accessed banking products, residential and commercial real estate financing, commercial lending, consumer financing, debit cards, safe deposit box services, money transfer services, automated teller machines, access to insurance and investment products, corporate and personal wealth management services, and other banking services. The company also provides mutual funds, annuity products, and market securities to customers, as well as issues title insurance to buyers and sellers of residential and commercial mortgage properties, including properties subject to loan refinancing. As of January 26, 2012, Chemical Financial Corporation operated 142 banking offices in approximately 32 counties in the lower peninsula of Michigan. The company was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Midland, Michigan.